I was never convinced by the "Black is beautiful" slogan.

I was never convinced by the "Black is beautiful" slogan. I thought black is in fact kind of ugly. But I also did not identify any kind of agenda behind the slogan. Only time has shown that it was not as innocent as it sounded.

As it turns out there is a great deal of hidden animosity towards white people. This even exists in the Jewish world as I sadlly began to notice when Sefardim seem intent on finding some fault with Ashkenazim and then pounce on it as soon as they imagine they have got it. The trouble is it is not all Sefardim. There does not seem to be any way of telling. It would be easy to deal with if it was uniform. But it is not. 

music file T71

t71 in midi   

רמב''ם ב הלכות אישות כ''ג: ג.

An idea of רב שך  concerning the רמב''ם in הלכות אישות כ''ג:ג. The רמב''ם says when the husband מתנה שאין לו זכות in the פירות of her נכסי מלוג, then land is bought with them and he eats the fruit of the fruit. The question of the רא''ש is that that does not fit with the גמרא כתובות פ''ג ע''ב. at all.
 גמרא כתובות פ''ג ע''ב. A question was raised. A husband removes himself from any right to the fruit of the fruit. Has he remove himself from the everything--that is also the fruit, or not? It must be he removes himself from everything because if he did not remove himself from the fruit and he eats it then from where comes the fruit of the fruit? But then according to that reasoning what about the משנה that says  ר. יהודה says he always eats the fruit of the fruit.  When he removes himself from the fruit he still eats the fruit of the fruit. How can that be? So it must means some of the fruit was left over. So in our case some of the fruit remained unused. From this גמרא the רא''ש asks on the רמב''ם הלכות אישות כ''ג: ג. The גמרא is clear that she has let over from the fruits, and if that happens, then land is bought with it and the husband eats the fruits of the land. That is פירי פירי. It can not mean that the husband left over from it, because he has no right to it in the first place after he סילק את זכותו  from them.  That means she might leave over from the fruits. If so then we sell them and buy land and he eats the fruits of the fruits. But it does not seem to mean she must sell the fruits. רב שך shows how there existed another version of the גמרא. The original version was this: They asked if he removes himself from the fruit of the fruit does he eat the fruit?  The answer must be yes. If that was not the case then  from where would the fruits of the fruits come from? Answer. he left some of the fruits.
I want to show how important it is that the גמרא means the husband leaves over from the fruit. For if that is the right גירסה, then the רמב''ם comes out perfectly, because the husband anyway has made a condition that he has no זכות in  the fruit. So the only thing it could mean is the he lacks some זכות in the fruit. Frankly I can not see how any other version of that גמרא could possibly make any sense. Just think about it in the version we have with רש''י. The גמרא is bothered by the question: from where the the fruit of the fruit would come from if there is no fruit, היינו he eats the fruit? That means it should be perfectly happy with the opposite scenario of his eating the fruit of the fruit, but not the fruit. But then that is the exact thing the גמרא asks on! The beginning of the גמרא does not and can not fit with the end. The only reasonable version is that that רב שך מציע. And if that is the case then we are left with the original question; what could it mean he leaves over from the fruit if he anyway removed himself from it? So to make sense of  this the רמב''ם had to say the the husband lacks ownership in the fruit. He can eat it but he does not own it.




רמב''ם ב הלכות אישות כ''ג: ג. רמב''ם אומר כאשר הבעל מתנה שאין לו זכות  בפירות של נכסי מלוג שלה, אז קרקע נרכשת איתם והוא אוכל את הפרי של הפירות. שאלת הרא''ש היא שזה אינו מתאים עם גמרא כתובות פ''ג ע''ב. עלתה שאלה. בעל מסיר מעצמו כל זכות הפרי של הפרי. האם הוא הסיר את עצמו מן הכל - (גם פרי), או לא? זה חייב להיות הוא מסיר את עצמו מכל מה שכן אם הוא אינו מסיר את עצמו מן הפרות והוא אוכל אותם, אז מאיפה מגיע הפרי של הפרות? אבל אז בהתאם לזה מה לגבי המשנה שאומרת ר. יהודה אומר שהוא תמיד יאכל את הפרי של הפרות. היינו כשהוא מסיר את עצמו מן הפרי הוא עדיין יאכל את הפרי של הפרות. איך זה יכול להיות? ולכן הוא חייב להיות שהפירוש שחלק הפרי נשאר. אז במקרה שלנו גם כן כמה פירות נותרו ללא שימוש. מכאן הרא''ש שואל על רמב''ם הלכות אישות כ''ג: ג. הגמרא ברורה כי אם היא מותירה מהפרות,  אז קרקע נרכשת עם זה ובעל אוכל פרותיהם. כלומר פירי פירי. זה לא יכול להיות שהבעל השאיר, משום שאין לו שום זכות עליה מלכתחילה לאחר שהוא סילק את זכותו מהם. כלומר, היא השאירה  מהפרות. אם כך שזה קרה אז אנחנו מוכרים אותם וקונים קרקע והוא אוכל פירותיהם של פירות. אבל זה לא נראה שהיא חייבת למכור את הפירות. רב שך מראה כיצד התקיים גרסה אחרת של הגמרא. הגרסה המקורית הייתה זו: הם שאלו אם הוא מסיר את עצמו מן הפרי של פירות האם הוא יכול לאכול את הפירות? התשובה חייבת להיות כן. אם זה לא היה המצב, אז מאיפה  הפרות של הפרות באים? תשובה. הוא השאיר כמה פרות. אני רוצה להראות כמה זה חשוב כי הגמרא אומרת הבעל משאיר מפרי משום שהבעל ממילא עשה מצב שאין לו זכות בפרי. אז הדבר היחיד שהוא יכול להיות הוא, הוא חסר קצת זכות בפרי. למען האמת אני לא רואה איך כל גרסה אחרת של אותה הגמרא יכולה לעשות נכונה. רק תחשוב על זה בגרסה שלנו עם לפי רש''י. לגמרא  הטרידה  השאלה: מהיכן הפרות של הפרי יבואו אם אין פרי, היינו הוא שאכל את הפרות? כלומר, זה צריך להיותשהגמרא תהיה שבע רצון לחלוטין עם התרחיש ההפוך שהוא רשאי באכילת הפרי של פירות, אך לא את הפירות. אבל  זה הדבר המדויק שהגמרא שואלת! תחילת הגמרא לא יכולה להתאים עם הסוף. הגרסה הסבירה היחידה היא שרב שך מציע. ואם זה המקרה, אז נותרנו עם השאלה המקורית; מה זה יכול להיות שהוא משאיר מעל מפרי אם הוא ממילא הסיר את עצמו ממנו? אז כדי להבין את זה הרמב''ם מחזיק הבעל חסר בעלות בפרי. הוא יכול לאכול את זה אבל הוא אינו הבעלים זה. היינו הוא אוכל את הפירות? הוא יכול לאכול את זה אבל הוא אינו הבעלים זה.

The major thing I added here was to show how only the Rambam's way can get the Gemara to make sense.
It's things like this that gives me a great deal of confidence in the Rambam about other things.

religious teachers

I do  not recommend religious teachers even when they claim to be teaching Torah. The main reason is experience and also from what I have heard from many other people in Israel.  Even in the religious world it is well known that most supposed teachers of Torah are false prophets. They tend to destroy Jewish families rather than build them. They are a kind of test that one who really wants to come to Torah has to go through.

Reb Nachman in fact dealt with this problem in his magnum opus but it is generally ignored.
In any case the fact that people give themselves a title does not mean that the rest of the Jewish people think anything good about them. On the contrary--they already have a bad reputation for ruining families and causing divorce, and their reputation gets worse by the day. Their actions speak louder than their words.

The problem however is a little different than the way Reb Nachman puts it. Or perhaps better said--Reb Nachman was right about the particulars, but I believe he missed the global issue. That is to say he was right to identify most teachers of Torah as agents from the Dark Side. But the larger issue is why do people get attracted to them? This has to do with anti-nomianism. Anti Law. Secular society mainly  says do what you like. but the spirit of man wants to soar above this world. So the Dark Side laws a trap such. So people that parade themselves as something higher and able to bring one higher in fact bring people into the very dungeons of the Dark Side itself.

[Solution is mainly to learn Torah on your own at home. There is also the fact that the NY Litvak Yeshivas tend to be about straight Torah. So given the possibility of learning in an authentic Lithuanian kind of yeshiva this warning would not apply. In fact if possible it is highly recommended to attend a decent Litvak yeshiva. I would have to say Ponovitch in Bnei Brak. 

Trust in God

Trust in God has a drawback that when one does not get what he trusts in God for, then questions arise. Thus I have tried to limit the actual amount of trust in God. This might be a mistake but it seems to be the only option once things stopped going my way.

I am not saying trust in God doesn't work. It works and it works and it works. It makes not difference one's doctrines or degree of righteousness. That is not the issue. The issue is one can fool himself to believe he is trusting in God, when in fact trusting in the system.--And why not since anyway everything is going his way. But in the religious world what passes for trust is often self deception.

Faith in God

Faith in God I think has little to do with doctrines. But it is not completely unrelated to doctrines either. Mainly, doctrines help to direct one's faith towards God. That is so that one should not (by accident) be putting one's faith in some aspect of the Dark Side.


Thus this idea of faith in more like personal trust in God more than faith in any set of doctrines.

[I must have mentioned this a long time ago. But basically the idea  of faith in God from a Torah standpoint is to learn the Oral and Written Law and to believe in God to take care of one's needs with a minimum of effort. But it does not mean to make Torah into a charity box. That issue of using Torah for money has been disguised as trusting in God for too long. People say they are trusting in God when in fact they are using Torah as a means to make money. Not everyone of course. My impression of the great Litvak yeshivas of NY and Bnei Brak is that in fact they are quite sincere in their trust in God and only accept charity from the State of NY or the State of Israel in order to learn Torah. That seems to me to be perfectly fine.]



I also suggest to learn with faith. That is in learning the four major subjects that the Rambam emphasized: The Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics-to not think if you understand or not. Rather to say the words and go on, and believe that God will eventually grant to you to understand.

To come to Torah, I think, to a large degree depends on learning in a Litvak yeshiva for a kind of esoteric reasoning. After the Gra came into the world, it seems to me that it is impossible to come to Torah except through the path that is based on his approach. Every other approach always seemed to me to be people using Torah to make money (the Torah for Money approach ) and pretending to be interested in what the Torah says. In spite of the numerical quantity of people supposedly learning Torah, it is all make believe learning. Not authentic Torah. So in essence one does need to be in either an authentic NY Litvak yeshiva or Ponovitch or some off shoot of Ponovitch.   [If that is not possible, then the best idea is simply to get the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and plow through it.]  

A wife can have a few kinds of property.

 A wife can have a few kinds of property. One is נכסי מלוג -property she brings into the marriage that is written into the ketuba that she takes out of the marriage. The other is נכסי צאן ברזל stuff not written in the ketuba. The husband אוכל פירות eats fruit.
This is important to know because it is often confused with the issue of מעשה ידיה [work of her hands] which is actually owned by the husband.  In other words- there is a big difference between property she brings into the marriage,- and a salary she gets for working or profits she makes in business. There is another issue of a present given to her on condition the husband can not use it.
One can go through the entire tractate of Ketubot and still not have these issue clear. The reason is this. There is an essential argument between the Rambam and the Rif about what it means for the husband to "eat fruit." And that issue comes up only in one very obscure place: a thief steals a calf of an animal of נכסי מלוג.

Rav Shach brings up the very important point that the Rambam says the thief pays the wife the כפל (double).  The reason is that the fact that the husband eats the fruit does not mean he owns the fruit.

The reason I bring this up is that it comes up in Bava Metzia chapter 8 השואל. There the issue is what is the category of a husband with the property of his wife - a borrower or a guard? 
My question is to what kind of property does that Gemara refer to?

[The Rif also holds the thief pays the double כפל of the ולד calf  to the wife, but if he stole the actual cow itself of מלוג he pays the double to the husband. That is he thinks of the double as fruit of the cow The Rambam on the other hand seems clear that either cow of the calf-in any case the thief pays the double to the wife. Rav Shach's point is simple. Whether you go by the Rambam or the Rif it does not matter because it is an open Gemara that the thief pays back the double for the calf to the wife. כתובות עט: הגונב וולד בהמת מלוג משלם תשלומי כפל לאשה משום דפירי פירי לא תקנום חכמים
But if the calf which is פירי fruit is owned by the husband then why would the thief pay the wife? So no matter how you look at it from the Rambam or the Rif, the husband only eats the fruits but does not own the fruits of נכסי מלוג or נכסי צאן ברזל. The reason I probably missed this point completely when I was doing Ketubot perhaps is the fact that Tosphot seems to be pretty clear on page 47 that the husband actually owns the fruit. See Ketuboth 83 and 79B for the related sugiot. 
]
[If anyone actually owns a copy of Bava Metzia they might look up the Rosh over there because I recall in the commentary on the Rosh in the regular Vilna Shas there is a long note about the issue of the husband's status in  as a borrower or  a guard. Also there s a Tosphot there that I never had time or opportunity to go into in depth.  ]


As I think about this  few hours later, I still wonder. After all the husband takes the fruit from the buyer of the field if his wife sold it. That is also to the Rambam. This is not a question so much as a point to consider. Also in terms of the Tosphot on page 47 of Ketubot, he does not actual say the husband owns the fruit but rather that it is like הקונה דקל לפירותיו. That does seem that he owns the fruit. But I am not sure. I still need to think about this.
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Besides the issues that I am wondering about in Bava Metzia I want to mention how the Rambam learn the Gemara in Ketubot which forms the main issue here. The actual gemara in chapter הכותב  on page 83 says If a husband writes to his wife I have no fruit of the fruit does he get the fruit? The gemara answers it is obvious he has removed himself from the fruit also because otherwise if he still can eat the fruit then from where would the fruit of the fruit come from?The way our Gemara continues is this Then according to you what about this statement of R. Yehuda.... Rather it must men she left over property. Rashi indicates that version. But you can see fro Rashi there existed another version in which the gemara answer the husband left over.  That is he could eat the fruit but did not and instead bought property with it and from the fruit of that property he removed himself.